Despite all the controversy, however, the fact is most of us have grown accustomed to Picasso’s style – or rather styles – over the years, and the painting is the jewel of the MOMA, loved and treasured by most visitors. At the beginning of 1907, Picasso began a painting, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" ("The Young Women of Avignon"), that would become arguably the most important of the century. Art critic Jonathan Jones writes, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is the rift, the break that divides the past and future.” 4. Interpretation of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. In Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it is possible to see both the past and the present, making Picasso an artistic bridge of sorts. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso Picasso ’s unnerving 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon shows five nude prostitutes with startling appearances. Of the main women in Picasso’s life, “two killed themselves and two went mad. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is the most famous examples of cubism. The large oil painting from 1907, was a new expression for the artist, a form of key proto-cubist work. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 (replica 1964), via Tate, London . It is an oil painting on canvas begun by Picasso in late 1906 and completed in the summer of 1907. Far from the classical female nudes, the five prostitutes all demonstrated the hard-angled and semi-abstract style that made Picasso so famous. Dada experimentalist Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, 1917 made history, spearheading the dawn of conceptual art. The huge composition (some 8 feet x 8 feet; 244 x 233 cm), which would have filled an entire wall of his cramped studio in the Bateau Lavoir building in Montmartre, is a figure painting of a scene in a brothel. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. It is no surprise that another one of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces made the list, this time with Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. Using the story of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) in particular, he attempts to encapsulate what made Picasso so revolutionary—and so reprehensible. In this painting, the viewer sees Picasso’s time period, the Baroque style, the African rage that French imperialism in Africa contributed to, and the beginning of the future. The painting began as a narrative brothel scene, with five prostitutes and two men–a medical student and a sailor. Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon, 1907. Another died of natural causes only four years into their relationship” (Hudson, Mark). Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. Another controversy of the life of Picasso was the fact many of his relationships ended in very troubling ways. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally titled The Brothel of Avignon) [2] is a large oil painting of 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Autoportrait (Self-portrait), 1901 "Picasso-Giacometti" at Musée Picasso Paris, Paris. It is eight feet tall, seven feet eight inches wide, and has hung since 1937 in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Pablo Picasso. With Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso offends the Paris art scene in 1907.